For me, so long as it includes an option to turn on a 'Start' button where it used to be, I'm good with it. I've been using it for a couple of months now on a desktop PC without a touch screen, and whilst initially a little confusing, I've pretty much adapted into finding things as I need them. Mrs. of Arabia, who recently got herself a new Vaio with a touch screen is finding it harder to adapt to, but unlike me, she doesn't work in the world of IT.

I am still sticking to my Win XP for recording. I have a portable Win 7 rig, but Win 8 which I installed for a friend is a resource hog and harder to get used to. Didn't see any value in it, just as I didn't in Vista. Things will eventually settle down and Microsoft will probably fix things with the next OS release that will be paid for I am sure.

I don't know what will be in the update -
I've been happily using Windows 8 since November 2012, I've installed it on two desktop machines now. (One 64-bit i7 hexacore powerhouse desktop, and one otherwise-would-be-going-in-the-bin 32bit 10 year old dual-core desktop machine) - it has invigorated both of them.

However, I haven't really found much use for the 'touch' (Metro) interface yet, as I've yet to be able to get the Surface Pro that I've had cash set aside for since Christmas! I imagine the touch intferface will be sweet to use on that - but the damn hardware isn't available yet!

I have to say, the reviews in sites like "The Register" and newspapers are usually shallow as hell and just focus on dumb trivialities like the "start button", they don't tell you much about actual features.
I even bought the "Windows 8 Inside Out" poweruser guide from Microsoft Press and I'm still finding undocumented things I like about Windows 8 that even it didn't mention.

For example:
At some point (was it introduced with Vista? Or an XP service pack?), Windows gained the ability to deal with Zip files "natively" - i.e. you can just click on a Zip file in Windows Explorer to open it and see inside, just like it's another folder, and you can right click things to either Zip or Unzip them ("Send to a compressed folder...") That's very handy and means you no longer need a third party utility like WinZip.

Well, last week I discovered Windows 8 now also supports .ISO images natively. That means, if you have an .ISO image of a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM on your hard drive, you can just click it in Explorer to 'virtually mount it' and see inside, as if you'd popped a CD or DVD disc in an optical drive. That's really handy! But did I see it listed as a new feature anywhere? Nope!
/tech journalists, sheesh/ mutter mutter

>At some point (was it introduced with Vista? Or an XP service pack?), Windows gained the ability to deal with Zip files "natively" - i.e. you can just click on a Zip file in Windows Explorer to open it and see inside, just like it's another folder, and you can right click things to either Zip or Unzip them ("Send to a compressed folder...") That's very handy and means you no longer need a third party utility like WinZip.

I have to say, the reviews in sites like "The Register" and newspapers are usually shallow as hell and just focus on dumb trivialities like the "start button", they don't tell you much about actual features.

I know, it gets very frustrating when all the noise is about, to me a least, such peripheral things like the start button and booting to desktop none of which affect my day-to-day productivity. Whereas the copying detail is excellent, the new taskbar that extends across screens, the task manager, the enhanced folder ribbon - the "up" button, better thumbnails, better access to file properties, better, faster searching and indexing - the way devices connect and pop-up without a fuss - networking is easy - easy access to admin tools - everything about the desktop is an improvement on Windows 7.... but we don't ever hear about it.

However, I haven't really found much use for the 'touch' (Metro) interface yet, as I've yet to be able to get the Surface Pro that I've had cash set aside for since Christmas! I imagine the touch intferface will be sweet to use on that - but the damn hardware isn't available yet!

That is all a bit weird - i dont get why it's not available yet. The Windows RT thing is also a bit weird - i can see what they tried to do but they've just confused people. They should have released it without the desktop - just make it Metro, like the iPad is just iOS - then people would have understood it as a consumption device and not a windows computer.

I'm using Metro more and more now i have a second screen which is multi-touch. I love it for playing video - no more messing about with WMP - i love the messaging app, the pictures app, the People app - it gives you Facebook in a far lovelier way. The news app is fabulous, full newspaper size on my 22" screen. A tonne of stuff that i would normally have to open a browser to get to is all instantly available at my finger tips in gorgeous full screen definition. And of course my kids like it for messing about on. So, the two different things, the desktop and metro, work perfectly for me - i dont need to be checking my phone or ipad while working on my computer as it's all there - but apparently im the only person who thinks this is a bit awesome.

Hopefully the new update will give a bit more control over Metro and make it easier to organise and maybe even create your own tiles. And running apps side by side in an equal split screen is also a useful feature rather than as a side bar type split. I'd also like the metro email to be more comprehensive as it cant tempt me away from Windows Live mail yet as i have lots of accounts and folders and stuff. So, lots more goodies to come.

How refreshing to have a positive Win8 conversation with someone - hooray!

I know, it gets very frustrating when all the noise is about, to me a least, such peripheral things like the start button and booting to desktop none of which affect my day-to-day productivity. Whereas the copying detail is excellent, the new taskbar that extends across screens, the task manager, the enhanced folder ribbon - the "up" button, better thumbnails, better access to file properties, better, faster searching and indexing - the way devices connect and pop-up without a fuss - networking is easy - easy access to admin tools - everything about the desktop is an improvement on Windows 7.... but we don't ever hear about it.

Indeed, there are *dozens* of little incremental operating system things that are even better than Windows 7, and make Windows XP look clunkly as hell. I basically can just now find anything I want on my computer (any file, anything *in* a file, any Windows setting or dialog I need) just by typing its name on the Start screen. I don't need to learn or remember hardly anything about how my computer or my files are organised - the OS takes care of that for me.

That, dear readers, is to me about as much as a paradigm shift as the time I sat down in front of Netscape on Windows 3.1 in 1994, and after about 10 minutes wondering "eh? What is the keypress to navigate to an address? To open a link? etc etc" I finally realised that you don't need to remember keypress sequences! You just point and clink with the mouse on the hypertext! Doh!

Similarly I imagine this bears comparison when we no longer needed to know about processor registers and instruction sets, but could program in FORTRAN

I know, it gets very frustrating when all the noise is about, to me a least, such peripheral things like the start button and booting to desktop none of which affect my day-to-day productivity. Whereas the copying detail is excellent, the new taskbar that extends across screens, the task manager, the enhanced folder ribbon - the "up" button, better thumbnails, better access to file properties, better, faster searching and indexing - the way devices connect and pop-up without a fuss - networking is easy - easy access to admin tools - everything about the desktop is an improvement on Windows 7.... but we don't ever hear about it.

Indeed, there are *dozens* of little incremental operating system things that are even better than Windows 7, and make Windows XP look clunkly as hell. I basically can just now find anything I want on my computer (any file, anything *in* a file, any Windows setting or dialog I need) just by typing its name on the Start screen. I don't need to learn or remember hardly anything about how my computer or my files are organised - the OS takes care of that for me.

Like OSX has been able to do for years ...

If windows 8 has managed to sort out its abysmal file search at last perhaps it is worth upgrading, as long as they ditch this ridiculous metro bollocks in the new update.

yes but unfortunately OSX is tied to a hardware based solely around the "Clavius Moonbase" space café scene from Kubrick's 2001 - and, no, whilst I consider Leonard Rossiter to be one of the finest actors of the 20th century, that's no basis for a system of computing.

The Metro interface is really GOOD for a tablet touchscreen.Why on earth would you want to use the Windows 2.0-based legacy GUI, designed for pointing and clicking with a mouse, and keyboard navigation of menus, when there is no mouse and no keyboard?!?

feline1 wrote:yes but unfortunately OSX is tied to a hardware based solely around the "Clavius Moonbase" space café scene from Kubrick's 2001 - and, no, whilst I consider Leonard Rossiter to be one of the finest actors of the 20th century, that's no basis for a system of computing.

I'm not sure what you mean by that.

The Metro interface is really GOOD for a tablet touchscreen.Why on earth would you want to use the Windows 2.0-based legacy GUI, designed for pointing and clicking with a mouse, and keyboard navigation of menus, when there is no mouse and no keyboard?!?

It's like you complaining "boats are rubbish! Who on earth needs boats? I live on a farm and I like driving my tractor! How the hell would I plough my fields with a yacht?!?"

No, that's a pretty wild analogy.

I am considering either upgrading my pc or just getting everything running off a new retina macbook pro. There's a handful of PC only things I like, but I think its more sentiment that keeps me from ditching it completely. There's really no need to keep a heavy ugly old box going these days. Its just that I've been upgrading it since I was a small child and it feels part of the family.

So, if Windows 8 is really just [ ****** ] then it may just be the tipping point for me. Those retina display macs are damn expensive, and I do like my 17inch mbp for watching films, but I just can't be bothered with some gimmicky "metro" rubbish and poor firewire performance.